How the Revolution Dies
by AlexaBones
Summary: Mockingjay one shot - Katniss is present for the Capitol's transmission of Peeta. It takes more than they initially thought to break her and the hijacking has failed, so they kill him. This is Katniss' POV as she watches, accepting that she loves him.


This is sad, yes, but it didn't actually happen because Peeta's life belongs to Suzanne Collins to do with as she sees fit! Please take a peek and review, I'd really appreciate it...

The screen briefly crackles with static and cuts to black. A few people begin to turn to me to see how I'm taking it; to see if they still have their Mockingjay. The Capitol takes us all by surprise as the monitors spring back to life. There's no sound this time, but we can see Peeta again. He's alone in the white room and he's kneeling on the floor, holding himself up as if he's been struck down.

I search his features for any indication of what has just happened to him but, frustratingly, there are no clues. His gaze seems empty. What has he suffered because of my reckless assault on the Capitol's forces? My brow furrows in confusion, and I glance sideways at Haymitch, who is equally perplexed. Have they forgotten to sever the connection to the cameras?

He falls onto all fours, coughing, spluttering... _choking_. The blood from his mouth splatters on the floor, appearing even more strikingly red against the sterile, white environment. Then it starts flowing in earnest. It dribbles sickeningly down his chin, and trickles from his nose to merge with the wetness on his lips. He pulls himself into a sitting position and looks directly at me, an apology in his eyes.

Haymitch makes the connection before I do. There's a fraction of a second before I make the realisation, then the breath leaves my lungs in a loud whoosh. They know the cameras are still rolling. They want us to see.

I feel several pairs of eyes pierce my back as I stumble towards the screen, arms outstretched in a futile attempt to be closer to him. As if I could stop his life-blood from becoming an ever growing stain on his skin, on his clothes and on the floor. We're watching him die. I'm watching Peeta Mellark die. I feel my blood turn cold, numbing my body. I want to turn away. I want to run and find a tree and climb it and just sit there until I starve to death. But this is my doing. Regretting isn't enough; I have to suffer in penance. I don't deserve to look away.

I know now that regardless of what happens from this point onwards, I will spend the rest of my life in this room, with my eyes lost to the screen, being swallowed whole by a hollow sense of helplessness and a useless wish that there was something I could do. I would do anything. _Anything_ to stop this. It's a silly thought. We all know what is now inevitable.

I look to Haymitch, whose tight jaw and tortured stare are enough to confirm my nightmares as a reality. I realise now what I have been too stubborn to accept from the beginning. I love Peeta. It's a love that I despise – it wraps a wire around my heart; it pumps razor-blades in my blood to destroy me from the inside out; it creates a fear of loss that is so immense that I one day soon I'll drown in it. But I know it's real. He made me love him and now he's destroying me forever. I cannot survive without him. He is the oxygen that feeds my flame, and in his absence it will silently flicker into darkness as all fires do when they are smothered from existence.

He'll never know.

I wonder if perhaps its better this way; any previous declarations of love would be weighing heavily on his heart now. Maybe it's easier for him to die without the burden of wasted time. Then again, I've always been selfish when it comes to Peeta, and I wish more than anything that I could whisper in his ear the three sweet words he's been longing to hear for so long. I think he would believe me. Not that it matters now.

My mouth goes dry. I can feel each breath I take rattling at the back of my throat, wondering how many I have left before it ends. The blood looks even more stark then before; tauntingly garish again his now porcelain skin. An ageless misery washes over me for seeing something so pure, completely honest and fundamentally _good_ being utterly forsaken.

My eyes, still glued to the screen, brim with yet unshed tears. When they finally spill over I find myself hoping he thinks of me fondly, perhaps wistfully, in these last few moments.

My heart rate picks up, thrashing relentlessly in my chest, urging me to remember that I'm still alive. But I'm not. Not really.

I watch the light leave his eyes and I know it abandons mine too.

Haymitch was wrong; _this_ is how the revolution dies.


End file.
